Vice President Mike Pence believes that any fair-minded person will understand that the sole purpose of President Donald Trump’s “extreme vetting” executive order is to keep the American people safe.

“What President Trump has done is essentially impose a pause on countries that have been compromised by terrorism, so that we can evaluate the screening process and establish an extreme vetting, so that people coming in to this country don’t represent a threat to our families and our communities,” Pence said to Sean Hannity at the White House today.

The order imposes a 120-day suspension of the Syrian refugee resettlement program and a 90-day halt on travel to the U.S. from citizens of seven countries, including Iraq, Syria and Libya.

Pence stressed that it’s not a “Muslim ban” and it’s not in any way associated with religion, noting that the Obama administration and Congress identified the same seven countries – Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Syria, Libya, Somalia and Yemen – as compromised by terror.

“This list is really garnered around whether the countries that we’re looking at have the internal systems that we can be certain people are who they say they are,” Pence said. “We need to step back to make sure that we have the additional safeguards.”

“President Trump has a lot of priorities, but his number one priority is the safety and security of the American people, and that’s why this decisive action took place.”